cigar until Gillespie was about ready to strangle him, but the banker would be damned if he’d ask and thereby show too much interest.
“She lost that baby. Had a fall down the stairs, she told me, an’ started bleedin. She was hemorrhagin’ by the time she was brought in t’me. If our fine new sheriff hadn’t found her, she mighta bled to death.”
“Why didn’t you just let the bitch die?” Gillespie growled.
“Aw, Bob, you know I cain’t do that,” protested Broughton. “I had a waitin’ room fulla people, and that sorta thing ain’t good for business. Ain’t it good enough that now the woman ain’t gonna give birth to no halfgreaser bastard to inherit your brother’s land?”
Gillespie was still examining his mixed emotions about his sister-in-law’s miscarriage. “Yes, I reckon that’s one good thing,” he finally said.
“And besides,” the sawbone continued, “Devlin was appearin’ t’take an interest. Seems he knew the woman…”
By then the rest of what Broughton had said earlier had sunk in. “You say Devlin found her? How’d that happen?” Gillespie demanded, chewing on the end of his own cigar.
The sawbones shrugged. “He said he was just payin’ a call. He’d been real insistent that I drop every thin’ to treat her, and he got real defensive when I, uh, kinda probed around as to how well he an’ your sister-in-law was acquainted.”
Gillespie studied the rotund physician. “Hmm. Now isn’t that interesting? This one-eyed fellow shows up just in time to stop a bank robbery, and he just happens to know Olivia. And he just happens to find her losing her baby. I call that an interesting bunch of coincidences, indeed I do.”
Predictably, Sarah Devlin wasn’t pleased to hear that her son had taken on the hazardous profession of sheriff.
“Honest to Pete, Caleb Travis Devlin, I just get you back from the dead, and now you’ve taken up the most dangerous profession there is,” she complained as she dished up his second helping of flapjacks. “You might just as well tell me now what hymns you want played at your funeral,” she added tartly.
Cal grinned. “I expect you’d have to hold a funeral here, and you ladies’d have to sing any hymns without accompaniment, ‘cause I don’t reckon Mr. Maxwell would countenance preachin’ my funeral service,” he drawled. Of the three women present, only Mercy returned his smile.
“Cal, you stop teasin’ Mama,” snapped Annie. “You ‘bout worried her to death not showin’ up last night. She’s already imagined you murdered somewhere on the road, and now you come in and tell her you’ve hung a star on your shirt because the last sheriff was killed right in front of you?”
“I already said I was sorry for not returning last night, and why I didn’t,” Cal said evenly. “And you know there isn’t much chance of anything interesting happening in Gillespie Springs again for about another hundred years, so you can stop frettin’. I was hoping someone in this family would wish me good luck, at least.”
“I do, brother,” Sam said from across the table, extending his hand over a plate that had been piled twice as high with flapjacks as Cal’s had. “I think it’s right fine we have a lawman in the family now.”
“You haven’t said why your other arm’s in a sling,” Cal commented.
Now it was Sam’s turn to grin. “That Goliad a’ yours took exception to pullin’ up after he beat Johnson’s stud in a race from their barn to Bryan. That was after he bred their mare, mind you. But don’t worry about me— nothin’s broke, I’m just a little sore.”
“He won’t do that if you give him a treat before he runs—an apple or a lump of sugar or something,” Cal said.
“Now you tell me,” Sam said ruefully, but the twinkle in his eyes showed he didn’t blame Cal. “I think ol’ Goliad’s gonna win us as much money racing as he is in stud fees. Not bad for an old warhorse.”
But Garrick, who’d been sitting silently, pushing his breakfast around on his plate, didn’t let the talk drift to Sam’s favorite topic, horse racing.
“Did you meet up with the Widow Gillespie before you played hero in front a’ the whole town?” he inquired.
Cal finished chewing before he replied. “I did.”
“Is she still, urn, in a ‘delicate condition’?”
“Garrick! I’m sure Cal did not bring up the subject to her!” Annie scolded.
“Annie, you’re becoming a prissy old woman!” Garrick retorted sourly.
Annie gasped and seemed about to reply in kind when Sarah intervened. “Garrick Devlin, you will apologize. I will not have you speaking to your sister in this fashion.”
“Mama, it’s just the truth. Ever since her husband died she’s been as fussy as an old hen.”
Annie sniffed and pulled a lacy handkerchief out of her pocket.
“Sweep your own doorstep first, mister,” came their mother’s firm reply. “You haven’t exactly been sweet as pie yourself these days.”
Annie looked mollified, Garrick sullen.
Cal spoke up before anything else could be said. “As much as I’d love to stay and chat, I’ve got to be getting back. They’ll be expecting to see my face around Gillespie Springs.”
“But Cal, you never told us anything more about Olivia,” protested Annie.
He’d hoped he was going to get by without doing so, but that hope died as he saw the curiosity written all over Annie’s face. He might as well get it over with; the gossip would get back this way before long, anyway.
“Olivia miscarried yesterday,” he said, rising. “Thanks for breakfast, Mama.”
Annie’s mouth dropped, then she clucked sympathetically. “She must have been in town and saw it all?” she guessed.
Cal didn’t bother to set her straight. His inquisitive sister didn’t need to know his role in the matter.
“I expect it was the excitement—the bank robbery and all,” she said knowingly. “Still, it’s probably for the best that she—”
“Goodbye, Mama, everyone,” said Cal firmly, reaching for his hat on the peg by the door. He did not want to discuss the matter any further. He’d spent too much of last night tossing on the lumpy mattress and wondering if Livy’s losing the baby was for the best or not.
“Now you be real careful, Caleb, you hear?” his mother added, just before he shut the door.
“I will, Mama. Don’t you worry,” he told her gently.
He arrived back in Gillespie Springs to find one of his jail cells occupied by a scared-looking lad perhaps ten years old, while an angry, balding man paced in front of the cell.
The man stopped pacing as Cal entered. “Oh, there you are, Sheriff Devlin. 1 took the liberty of arresting this young hooligan until you returned.”
“Oh? And what law did he break?” Cal inquired, studying the white-faced boy huddled on the cell’s cot. The boy stared back, looking more frightened than before as his eyes rested on the black eye patch Cal wore.
“I’m Fred Tyler, and I own the general store. I caught him red-handed, filchin’ the licorice sticks!”
Cal stepped over to the barred alcove, and the boy cringed. “What’s your name, son?”
“D-Davy.